Rail Legal Services

The Department for Transport (DfT) and related organisations can use this agreement to access legal advice and support specific to rail services.  The wider public sector can not use this agreement.

Description

We developed this agreement in partnership with DfT who will be the main buyer of these services. It will replace our current RM3756 Rail Legal Services agreement which expires on 31 March 2022. 

You will only be able to use this agreement if you are part of:

  • a central government department or their arms length bodies
  • a public sector buying organisation
  • the Great British Railways

You can access legal experts who fully understand the structure and complexity of the rail industry. They will be able to provide you with legal advice and support in 20 areas of law specific to rail including:

  • regulatory law
  • rail commercial law
  • public procurement law in relation to rail related matters
  • subsidy law
  • EU law
  • international law
  • competition law
  • dispute resolution and litigation law
  • employment law
  • environmental law
  • health and safety law
  • information law including data protection law
  • information technology law
  • insurance law
  • intellectual property law
  • pensions law
  • planning law
  • real estate law
  • restructuring/insolvency law
  • tax law

The agreement will run for 3 years, with an option to extend for a further 12 months.

Call-off contracts can be of any value and length, although they must end no later than 2 years after the agreement end date.

Benefits

  • flexible route to market with the option to award through further competition or direct award
  • you can agree alternative fee arrangements and further rate reductions via further competitions,flexible terms and conditions, based on the Public Sector Contract
  • encourages new solutions to reduce cost and improve efficiencies
  • provides added value with extra services including secondments and exchanges
  • strict agreement management with us and DfT monitoring all suppliers for quality, performance and value for money

Products and suppliers

There are 8 suppliers on this agreement

Lot 1: Rail Legal Services

Expires:

8 suppliers

How to buy

Before using this agreement we recommend you read our customer guide.

You can buy these services through:

  • further competition
  • direct award

If you are a DfT customer you should first contact the DfT commercial relationship manager, Ria Morodore. Ria will help you to prepare and highlight potential needs.

If you are not part of DfT, you should still ask Ria Morodore for permission to access the suppliers.

Before you can take part in either a further competition or direct award, you will need to complete framework schedule 6 (Order Form and Call Off Schedules).

You can use our eSourcing tool to run your further competition or direct award. 

If this is your first time using the eSourcing suite, you will need to register an account. 

If you have already registered, you can log into your eSourcing account. Or you can use your own eSourcing platform.

Check your own internal policies and processes to make sure they follow your standard operating procedures.

Further competition 

To award a call-off contract through further competition you should:

  1. develop a clear specification of your needs
  2. where suitable, use the available tools to shortlist the number of suppliers you invite to bid
  3. use framework schedule 6 as the basis for your call-off contract
  4. make sure that you amend or refine your contract deliverables, including liability caps, where needed
  5. develop your further competition award criteria, this will form the basis of your decision to award a call-off contract
  6. you will need to include your intended pricing schedule so suppliers can provide their pricing in a way that meets your needs
    • for example, your pricing schedule could ask that a supplier provides an hourly rate or a fixed cost for the services
  7. invite all identified suppliers to submit a tender in writing by publishing your tender documents using an eSourcing tool or by email, in line with the public contract regulations
  8. set a time limit for the submission of tenders
  9. take into account the time needed to create and submit tenders and the complexity of your needs
  10. keep each tender confidential until the time limit for the return of tenders has ended
  11. apply your published award criteria to each submitted tender
  12. award your call-off contract by sending a completed and signed framework schedule 6 to the successful supplier
    1. suppliers should sign and return this document as soon as possible and they can do this electronically
  13. provide unsuccessful suppliers with written feedback on why their tenders were unsuccessful
  14. for transparency purposes, publish your contract on Contracts Finder

Direct award 

To direct award under this agreement you should:

  1. develop a clear specification of your needs
  2. determine which suppliers are capable of meeting your needs by reviewing the capability matrix
  3. apply the direct award criteria to the prospectus of each capable supplier
  4. establish which capable supplier provides the best value for money
  5. contact the supplier you have selected and provide them with you specification
  6. give the supplier enough time to:
    1. complete their conflict of interest checks
    2. confirm that they are able and have the capacity to meet your needs
  7. if you want the supplier to carry out the work under an alternative fee arrangement, ask the supplier to quote their fees
  8. award the call-off contract by sending a completed framework schedule 6 to the supplier
    1. suppliers should sign and return this document as soon as possible and they can do this electronically

Documents